Fallen But Still Standing
by KimiStorm
Summary: Tate Suzuki, an optimistic faunus living through life. She wants to live her life the way she wants to, and hopefully, find a lost dear friend. Rated T for violence and minor character death. *On hiatus*
1. Chapter 1

My name is Tate Suzuki. Sixteen years old and doing the finals that could make or break my chance to get into one of the most prestigious hunter and huntress academy's there is.

"Half an hour left." I jumped at the sound of my teacher's voice, only half an hour left until we are done with finals! We will be free! That is, free until we come crashing down back to earth with our final grades.

Where do I want to go? Well that's easy, Beacon Academy. That's right, I'm training to be a huntress. Yeah, it's dangerous, but the thrill of fighting a grimm, the adrenaline that flows through your body, the feeling of satisfaction you get when the grimm in front of you disintegrates. I prefer that over sitting in a stuffy office.

I sighed and pushed my brown hair out of my face, knowing that I should reread my answers, but in all honesty, I don't want to. I just want to turn in my test, and pull out a book. Is that really too hard to do? No. Should I do it if I want to get into Beacon, yes. Sighing again, I held the packet and went through every problem, reason had won this time, and probably won't win again until many years from now. After going through all my answers, I stood up from my desk, pushing back the hard plastic chair and walking to the front of the room to turn in my test. I was grateful to be out of my seat, even if it was only for a minute. I returned to my seat, fell into it ungracefully and took out my book from my bag. Happy to escape from the real world, even if it was only for 20 minutes.

The rest of the class proceeded to go quickly, and before I knew it, the last minute was up and we were free from finals. For me, not only was I free from finals, but I was also free from the people who tormented me for all these years. I ran out of the classroom, determined to get to my locker and pack up before anyone could catch me.

"Hey Hawk Eyes." Speak of them and they shall appear. I turned around to face a barbie pink girl and her group.

"Hey Barbie." I replied, mimicking her tone. Her eyes narrowed in anger, I obviously didn't make her happy, but I didn't care, this would be my last day seeing her, not like she'd ever get into Beacon.

"I'm sure you got a perfect score on your test."

"And how would you know?"

"Because you're such a nerd." The other girls began to let out high pitched giggles, I cringed.

"You obviously don't have anything better to do with your life, so I'll just take my leave." I spun on my heel and began to walk away, I heard footsteps behind me, but decided to ignore it, that is, until I was shoved into the hard wall. Hard. I winced as my breath got knocked out, before turning to the girl who shoved me. Of course it was Razz, the barbie pink girl who was the leader. In all honesty, I don't know why they decide to just pick on me, I'm not the only faunus. Maybe it's because I'm so light, so it's easy to push me around.

"I had hoped by now you would get it into that thick skull of yours to not insult me."

"I guess it hasn't sunk in, care to reiterate?" I grinned. That made her mad, along with pretty much everything else I did.

"I wouldn't want to be in your position right now." She hissed, grabbing my wrist, knowing how it only took seven pounds to break a normal wrist, but even less for my own.

"Oh really?" I asked, fingering my weapon behind my back, even though close combat wasn't my specialty, I could make an acception.

"Hey! What are you doing?" a teacher yelled, I looked behind Razz, and during her moments of confusion I snuck out from under her grasp and took off down the hall, disappearing from sight in a matter of seconds. I hastily opened my locker and threw stuff into my backpack, made sure nothing was left and slammed the locker shut. I was done with this pre-training.


	2. Chapter 2

"How was your last day?" my mom gushed as I jumped into the car.

"Good," I huffed, throwing my backpack into the back seat.

"Well, you better get your application together when we get home."

I nodded, prepare everything so as soon as I got my grades back, I could send it and hopefully increase my chances into getting into Beacon.

"Aw, my little girl is growing up!"

"Mom." I groaned, not in the mood for dealing with her gushy behavior.

"You'll text us and call us every day."

"Mom, I'm not even accepted into any schools!"

"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter." She waved. I looked over at my mom, she was so much prettier than me. Long, wavy brown hair and sparkling matching brown eyes. She was a faunus too, but no one would be able to guess, she was one of the lucky ones who were able to hide their faunus traits easily. She was a bunny faunus, she didn't show the ears, but her nose was slightly more triangular shaped, but nothing that would attract suspicion. She had a petite body, and seemed to always be bursting with energy. I had inherited her hair, except mine decided to be flatter than hers, and her petite stature, but because of my faunus type, it wasn't exactly easy to deal with. I was just lighter, and not because I eat less, it's because my actual body is a lot lighter, my bones are much more porous, resulting in a much lighter me, and making me more prone to bone injuries. My eyes however, did not inherit any part from my mom. They were a bright yellow, and were shaped like a hawks, circular with extremely angular eye lids. Even my nose, slightly shaped like a hawks' beak, not too obvious, but much more obvious than my mom's. "Do you want a snack when we get back home?"

"Uh, not really."

"Are you sure?" she sang, "I made cookies!"

"I guess I could eat a cookie, or two." I relented, my mom knew how I had a weakness for homemade cookies, but then again, who didn't? I certainly couldn't.

"I knew you'd want a snack."

"Stop gloating." I muttered darkly.

"Okay, fine, be that way." She pouted, sometimes, I really wonder who's the adult.

The rest of the ride home was quiet, I had put my earbuds in and was listening to my favorite music. The car slowed to a halt and the car turned off, I took out my earbuds and opened my door, getting out and then turning around to grab my backpack. As soon as I opened our door to get into our house, the smell of fresh cookies wafted through the air. I gave a happy sound of delight before dropping my backpack by the stairs and making a beeline for the cookies. The cookies had cooled when my mom went to pick me up, so when I picked them up, they were still warm, but not hot. "Yum, these are the best."

"Glad you like them." My mom grinned, taking a cookie and popping it into her mouth.

"It's impossible to not like it." I answered around my gooey cookie. "Okay, I'm going up to my room now." I grabbed three more cookies and put one in my mouth, grabbed my backpack and walked up the stairs to my room. My room was painted a soft yellow, and blue curtains hung in front of my window. I dropped my backpack onto the floor next to my brown desk before falling into the black chair and taking out my laptop. I pulled up my document and began compiling my application while slowly eating the two cookies I had brought upstairs to my room. I groaned, I really did not want to do this, maybe I'll just train instead. Yeah, I'll do that.

I pushed away from my desk before sneaking downstairs, hoping that I could sneak past my mom into our basement to train.

"Tate." I sighed, I guess I wasn't going to have such luck.

"Yes?" I asked sweetly, turning to face my mom.

"Have you finished filling out your application?"

"Well…" I hesitated, stalling for time to make an excuse.

"Go back up to your room and finish it."

"But mom." I whined.

"I made you cookies, so you should have the energy to do it. If I find you sneaking back down here without finishing your application you will be banned from cookies."

"Mom!"

"Go upstairs and finish your application."

I groaned and turned around, beginning the way upstairs to my room. Guess I wouldn't be training anytime soon.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was still hurting. No, not from Razz, that shove was a small injury I could deal with, it was the missing of a friend that hurt me. I looked over to my dresser, a small picture frame was propped on top of it. Inside the blue, plastic picture frame were two pictures. One of them was me when I was five, along with my best friend Estes Toyama. Our parents hadn't realized it, but we had made a promise right before they had taken that picture, a promise that we would stay best friends forever. The second picture was the last picture Estes and I had with each other, we were both eleven, already in pre-training, and still the best of friends. Soon after, my parents had packed up and we left. Estes and I had exchanged a couple of words before I left, but they were rushed, and in the midst of all the commotion, we had forgotten to exchange email addresses.

After groaning and rolling around in my bed, I decided to get up and sneak downstairs. I peeked around, looking to make sure that neither my mom or dad were awake and tiptoed all the way down to the basement. Training has always took my mind off of things, hopefully it'll take my mind off of Estes. I walked purposefully towards the punching bag before letting loose a barrage of punches, careful to not scream and wake up my parents.

This continued for about half an hour until I was too tired that I actually considered to remain in the unfinished basement and sleep. Then I remembered that my mom would ban me from cookies, and cookies are practically my lifeline, so I trudged back up the stairs and fell face first into my bed. Blankets are for the weak.

I take that back, after only a few minutes I had to reposition myself so I could get the blankets. So much for my resolve. Within minutes of me becoming comfortable, I had fallen into the darkness that we call sleep.

"Wake up Tate."

"Ngh, just a few more minutes." I buried myself farther into my pillow.

"Tate I said wake up." My mom snapped back.

"No." I heard her sigh and then without warning my blinds were thrown open and I had been yanked out of my bed and fell painfully to the floor. "Ow." I groaned, falling backwards to rest on the side of my bed while holding an arm to my eyes.

"I told you to wake up." My mom sang, walking out of the room, "dad offered to train with you, so you shouldn't keep him waiting."

"On it." I sleepily murmured raising my free hand in a way to gesture that I had heard what she said.

"My goodness Tate, wake up!" I heard her call from the stairs.

"I am awake! Sorta."

"I heard that!"

"I figured!"

"Tate!" I heard her call warningly, and that was my cue to actually wake up and get dressed.

"I'm working on it!" I grabbed a loose shirt and some shorts before going into the bathroom to take a shower, not like it would do much considering I was going to be training right after this.

After a quick shower, I yanked my brush through my hair and put as much as I could in a ponytail, meaning about three quarters of my hair. The other quarter of my hair was too short to fit in a ponytail and framed my face. I ran downstairs and grabbed a muffin before making my way to the basement.

"Where's your weapon?" my dad asked, looking up from his own.

"I didn't know we were doing weapon training!" I groaned.

"Would you rather do close combat?" he asked, black eyes twinkling in a teasing manner.

I thought about it, do something I'm good at, or do something I should work on. "I'll go grab my weapon."

"Alright, but just know that close combat is your weak spot."

"I know that!" I yelled back towards him as I made my way back up the stairs to my room. My dad was, surprise surprise, also a faunus. He was also a bird type faunus, I'm not really sure which bird though. He has small wings on his back that don't really do anything, except get in the way of fighting. They kind of look like a hawk's, but I think I'm just deluding myself into thinking that so I know where I got my hawk eyes.

Upstairs in my room I grabbed a handful of cookies and placed them in my pockets, along with grabbing my gloves that were prefilled with my basic necessities for fighting.

"Tate! I'm waiting!" I heard my dad call.

"I'm coming!" I replied, semi-annoyed, before jumping onto the bannister and riding it down to the first floor, then going to our basement door and running down the stairs.

"Are you ready?" my dad grinned, taking out his sword.

"I should be asking you that." I replied, making sure my gloves were strapped on tight.

"Bring it on."

"If you are going to do long range fighting, do it out in the field!" my mom scolded us from the top of the basement stairs, ruining the atmosphere.

"Of course." My dad replied, pulling open the basement door.

"And Tate, you have to finish your applications." My mom told me right as I walked through the door.

"Right, I'll do it, after this."

She looked at me disbelievingly.

"Promise."

"I'm holding you to that promise."

"Got it!"

"Tate hurry up!" my dad called, already at the field.

"I'm coming!"


	4. Chapter 4

"Sir." A gruff voice stated.

"What do you want?" a shadow asked from their position propped against the brick wall.

"There's been another raid."

The shadow groaned, "White Fang or Torchwick."

"That is uncertain."

"We're stopping them."

"But-"

"There will be no 'but's', we need to protect our supplies."

"We don't even use dust."

"It'll be a valuable resource, we'll need it, and besides, it'd be nice to be on the owner's good side. For once." The shadow let out a harsh laugh.

"I'll tell the others." The owner of the gruff voice left.

The shadow sighed and dug something out from their pocket, a small locket, with a picture of two smiling teenagers. One, the female, had feathery brown hair, the other, the male, had dirty brown hair that was still kept and neat. "I wonder if you still miss me, because I still remember our promise." The locket was snapped shut and stowed back into it's original spot. The owner of the locket stalked away from the wall, their combat boots the only things breaking the silence.

 **Sorry for the short chapter, but I'm trying to avoid time skips, thus I'm separating time skips into different chapters.**


	5. Chapter 5

"Tate! Your scores came!" I heard my mom running around downstairs.

"Really? Let me see! Are they good? Bad? Miserable?" I threw down the book I was reading and raced down the stairs.

"Really? Miserable?" my mom looked at me disapprovingly.

"Okay, forget I said that, did I do good?"

"I don't know, I haven't opened it." She handed me the letter. So much for relieving some stress.

I shakily took the letter and began opening it, when someone rang the doorbell. Then knocked the door. Followed by the ringing of the doorbell, long and hard.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" my mom called out, hurrying to open the door. "How can I help y-" Standing on our front porch were a couple of members from the White Fang. I could tell because of their outfits, the standard uniform, white vest, white tailcoat, black clothes underneath and the mask covering half their face. I hurried over to hide behind a wall, who know's why these people are here.

"You're a faunus?" one member asked, the one on the right.

"Well it would appear so." My mom replied cheerfully. The two members glanced at each other.

"You know about the discrimination of faunus?"

"Hard not to, with it being in the news and stuff. Why do you ask?"

"You live alone?" the member on the left side asked, disregarding my mom's question.

"Why do you ask?"

"Are you a huntress?" the member on the right side asked, also disregarding the question. Someone needs to teach them manners.

"Me? What makes you think I'm a huntress? Being out on the field, alone, facing all those scary grimm. Nope, can't do that." I smiled, my mom could make any lie sound like a truth.

"What about the other people living in this household?"

"Nope, never. The people I care about will not train to be a hunter or a huntress."

"Listen, bunny." The atmosphere suddenly changed, quickly becoming hostile, "you may not know it, but there are people who will kill faunus. So, I suggest that you come under the wing of the White Fang. You'll be given protection and will help fight for the faunus. We'll give you time to think about it, but you and your little family will be at the headquarters of the White Fang if you know what is right." I heard the sound of my mom being shoved and the door slammed shut.

"Are you alright?" I asked, running from behind the wall.

"Huh, they even left an RSVP date." She mused, in her hand was a small slip of paper that held the location that we were supposed to be at, along with the RSVP date that my mom had talked about.

"They know. How do they know?" I asked, slowly falling to my knees.

"Shh, it's okay. We're not going to fight for the White Fang, we haven't for the past few years, and we're not going to break that record." My mom got down on her knees in front of me.

"But they know that you were a huntress! They know that dad's a hunter! They know that I'm training to be a huntress!" I wailed, "what are we supposed to do now?"

"Listen, we'll talk to dad when he gets home-"

"What if he never gets back home?"

"Tate! Listen to me, stop splitting ends. He will come home safe and sound, until then, you have a letter to open." She gestured to the now crumpled up letter in my hands.

"I don't want to be a huntress anymore, if this is what we have to put up with if we're hunters and huntresses then I don't want to be one." I said, my voice hard.

"Tate, you have been training for this opportunity for years now, and you're just going to let it slip through your fingers? Being a huntress puts you at an advantage. You don't have to rely on other people for protection, you can protect yourself. Why else do you think I keep my weapon in my room?" she gave me a small smile. "So just open that letter, it may be your ticket to Beacon."

I nodded and ripped open the seal, pulling out the papers and scanning it for the important information.

"Well?" my mom looked at me anxiously.

"You'll want to look at this yourself." I passed her the papers, watching her face morph into one of happiness.

"Oh I'm so proud of you! You passed with flying colors! Go on! Get this in your application!" she handed back the stack of papers, which I took and ran upstairs with, I took out the folder which held all the necessary paperwork and put the grades into the folder. "Your dad is going to be so proud of you! But first, hand over the folder." She held her hand out and I had no choice except to give it to her. She then opened it and looked through it, making sure that everything was in order and correct. Honestly, she treats me like a ten year old, but maybe it's because I sounded like one earlier. "Looks good."

"Let's hope this is enough to get me into Beacon."

"I'm sure it is."

I smiled, there is no way that we are letting the White Fang affect us.


	6. Chapter 6

"Wow!" I peered out of the windows and looked out at the scenery. It was gorgeous. Never in a million years did I think I would be able to see a view this awesome, but here I was, standing in a huge plane overlooking a view that reached the entire span of Vale. Yes, I was accepted into Beacon. Take that White Fang!

It was really nerve wracking, waiting for the letter that states whether I was accepted or not, and don't even get me started on the actual opening of the letter. I had no idea what the letter was going to say, it could've been a letter saying that I wasn't accepted, or a letter saying that I was. Clearly, the letter had said the latter, and here I am, on a plane to the prestigious Beacon Academy.

I glanced around, looking for the signature nauseating pink that belonged to Razz. Luckily, I saw no nauseating bright pink, but I did see some pink. Note to self, avoid the people wearing pink.

"Hi! I don't really have anybody to talk to, and you looked alone, so uh, do you want to talk?" A girl clad in mostly red and glitter appeared.

"Hi! Nice to know I'm not the only new one here, not that I was worried or anything." I shrugged, noticing how I was a couple inches shorter than her, but in all honesty, she looked about thirteen. I blame it on the hawks.

"What are you doing at Beacon?"

"Excuse me?" I asked, it may have been a simple sentence, but I felt mildly offended.

"Ah, I didn't mean any offense!" she waved her hands wildly in front of her, as if trying to erase her mistake, "I'm just curious to what makes people go!"

"Well, most of my family is made up of hunters and huntresses, so I figured to follow in their footsteps, and it's fun! Just the adrenaline and stuff like that. There's also the White Fang, but that's a minor thing."

"The White Fang? So, are you part of the White Fang?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"No! Of course not! Just, they are being annoying, so we have to deal with them, that's what I mean."

"Oh, alright. Oops, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Sadi Marks! I do not believe in the superstitious or supernatural!" Sadi declared happily, "What's your name?"

"I'm Tate Suzuki, hawk faunus and a huntress in training. But, you probably already knew that." I smiled sheepishly, realizing how the majority of what I had said was blatantly obvious.

"Can you fly?" Sadi asked immediately.

"I wish." I groaned half-heartedly.

"Aw, that's a shame. Oh! We can see the school! It's so big and pretty!" she pressed her face up against the glass, looking very much like a kid outside a candy store.

"Just curious, how old are you?"

"Sixteen." I did a double take, she's as old as I am? "A lot of people think I'm a lot younger than that, so it's okay if you think that." Did she just read my mind? "Stop gawking at me." She turned around to look at me, "it's not nice." She then began to pout.

"I wasn't gawking at you." Real subtle Tate.

"If you say so." Sadi sang, turning back to look out the window. "Oh look! We've begun to land! I'm so excited!"

"You definitely sound excited." I smiled.

"You're being a meanie." Sadi didn't turn away from the window, but I could tell she was pouting.

"Am I?"

"Yes, you're mocking me."

"No I'm not, am I?"

"I don't know, but it kind of sounded like it. Don't listen to me, I don't know what I'm saying." Sadi shrugged.

"Okay, sounds good."

"Hey! I didn't mean it literally!"


	7. Chapter 7

"Sienna Hershel, Nadeshiko Kawamoto, Sadi Marks, and Tate Suzuki. The four of you found the black castle. The four of you will be Team SNST (sunset), led by Sienna Hershel." Professor Ozpin called out.

"I can't believe I'm on a team with you!" Sadi yelled, giving me a hug as the four of us walked off of the stage, completely ignoring the next team being called. When we were in the forest, I had made eye contact with Nadeshiko, so the chances that we were on the same team were slim. Nadeshiko is, well, I don't really know. He's pretty antisocial, and he's wearing pink. Remember my note to self earlier? Yeah, well that failed, but I'm still wary. Better safe than sorry, but it's not like any of us talk to each other, actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever heard him talk. So, I don't know what to think of him.

"Alright you two, hug fest is over." Sienna pushed her way in between us, "any of you have any useful things we could use for fighting?" she looked between the other three members of our team, disgust written all over her face. We all looked at each other, what was she implying? "That's what I thought, what are you even doing here at Beacon? You know what, don't answer that question, I don't need to know your petty answers." With that, she flounced away, disappearing into the crowd.

"Well that was something." Sadi said slowly, still looking at where Sienna had disappeared.

"Maybe she's actually a nice person, she just has a tough exterior." I suggested meekly.

Nadeshiko gave me a deadpanned look, but didn't say anything.

"Hopefully, but she was like that in the forest as well." Sadi said in reply to my suggestion.

"Well maybe she'll change, you never know." I tried pathetically.

"I hope so." Sadi ended our conversation with that small sentence.

"Go Team SNST?" I tried again. Nadeshiko gave me another deadpanned look and Sadi gave me a shrug, while I tried to inconspicuously move away from Nadeshiko.

"It's about time you got here!" Sienna snapped, breaking our mutual silence.

"Ah!" Sadi jumped and turned to face Sienna, who had appeared once again and was glowering at all three of us.

"Do you realize how much time we've wasted from just waiting for you to get here?" Nadeshiko, Sadi, and I all exchanged looks again. What is she talking about? She's the one who walked away, and Professor Ozpin is still calling out teams.

"Uhm, Sienna, maybe you shouldn't yell so loud." Sadi whispered quietly, tapping said person's shoulder.

"And why is that?" Sienna demanded.

"Professor Ozpin is still talking."

"That's probably the most accurate thing you've said all day." Sienna snapped back, causing Sadi's face to crumble into one of sadness.

"That wasn't very nice." Sadi whimpered, sounding like a kicked puppy.

"Be quiet, I'm trying to listen." Sienna waved a hand in Sadi's face in an attempt to make her be quiet.

"I'm not a dog." Sadi responded quietly.

"Shush, I'm trying to listen." Sienna shoved Sadi away from her, causing said person to stumble back.

This silence continued until the end of Ozpin's speech, which was not the most interesting thing in the world. Finally, after hours, okay, that was an exaggeration, it was probably less than one, we were dismissed. Immediately after Ozpin said that, Sienna spun on her heel and walked away; probably to go to our dorm room.

"Are you okay Sadi, you look pretty hurt." I immediately rushed over to her to hug her.

"I'm fine." Sadi mumbled.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm sure." The two of us continued to hug until Nadeshiko came and pulled us apart and began dragging the two of us to our dorm. I immediately recoiled from his grasp and began to walk on my own, while Sadi followed in a zombie like fashion. Now I'm beginning to wonder if he can't speak.

"Uh, can you speak?" Nadeshiko looked at me strangely. Oh, did that come out offensively? "Never mind." I hastily tried to cover my mistake as I looked down at my combat boot clad feet and walked away. Hm, I never realized how cool they were, yellow laces and yellow straps crisscrossing across the shoe.

"Yeah." My head shot up and I looked at him, my eyes probably bulging out.

"Oh, so you can." Nadeshiko raised his eyebrows at me, that probably came out mean as well, "no offense." I tried shrinking back; in an attempt to disappear into the wall.

"Hn."

I sighed, that answer didn't help at all. The three of us trooped back to our dorm room, Sadi was slowly coming back to reality, but was still quiet, Nadeshiko was silent, and me, well I was trying to keep my mouth closed so I don't say anything more offensively.

"There you guys are! How long does it take for you to get back over here!" Sienna demanded when we came back into the room. "That doesn't matter, while you three were frolicking and having fun, I was getting together an attack plan." Sienna flipped her blond-white hair and then opened a notebook with scribbles all over it. "Okay, you, what's your face." Sienna pointed at Nadeshiko.

"Nadeshiko." He responded.

"Yeah, that. You look like a long range fighter, so you're providing backup from the treetops."

"I'm close-" Nadeshiko started before being cut off.

"Useless girl," here Sienna pointed at Sadi while Nadeshiko frowned, "you're also a long range fighter right? I wasn't paying attention to your fighting skills, don't blame me, they're terrible. You'll be with pink guy and guarding his back while providing us with backup." Sadi's face fell with every word Sienna said, apparently she was a close range fighter.

"Sienn-" Sadi tried to talk before getting cut off.

"Hawk eyes." Sienna pointed to me, I closed my eyes and breathed. I thought when I had left my old school I was done with those nicknames, guess not.

"Yes, bow?" I asked in response, referring to her orange-brown ribbon that she used as a headband, but actually did nothing to keep her uneven bangs out of her face.

"Excuse me?" Sienna asked, pausing from her rant to glare at me.

Okay, that came out mean as well, "never mind, keep talking."

Sienna gave a 'humph' and flipped her really long hair. Seriously, it's really long, it goes past her hip. "You, you look like you're a close range fighter, and because you're the only close range fighter, you have the hardest job. Sorry." Sienna gave a smile that didn't look very apologetic, or even real. "You'll have my back. The two of us will be at the front of the line, so you better keep my back, because I'm counting on you, so don't make me regret my choice."

"Wai-"

"Alright, this looks good, go to sleep now, I've signed us up for a test mission. Apparently it's to see how your team works, yadda yadda. Sounds good? Good, now get to sleep now."

"Sienn-"

"You can thank me later, just get to sleep now! I'm the leader so you have to listen! Got it?" Sienna screeched, "now get to sleep!"

None of us moved.

"Now!"


	8. Chapter 8

"Up and at 'em!"

"Five more minutes." I groaned, obviously thinking it was still my mother.

"I'm not your mother! Get up!" I heard an angry huff and someone stalking away. "Get your lazy butt up! We have a mission in an hour!" I heard the person shaking another.

"Don't touch me." Said another voice, and then a slap.

Next was an astonished gasp, "you should never hit a girl!" then another slap.

"Is it morning already?" a bleary voice asked.

"Yes, it is! Now get up!"

I didn't hear any sounds of moving.

"Fine, I'm going to get breakfast, if you three aren't up by the time I get back, I'm requesting to move teams." Then the door slammed shut.

"I wouldn't mind it if she switched." I mumbled.

"Neither would I." Sadi agreed.

"Hn."

I sat up in my bed and slowly got out, Nadeshiko was doing the same thing while Sadi just curled up into a tighter ball. I walked over to my suitcase, since we still hadn't unpacked, and got out a clean outfit. "So, Nadeshiko, you're not a long range fighter, are you." I turned around to look at Nadeshiko, who was standing there in plaid pajama pants, a white shirt and his messy black hair. Blame my mouth with a brain of it's own, I did not want to associate with anyone wearing pink.

"Correct." He responded, reaching down to get his outfit.

"Want to switch positions with me?" I asked as I walked into the bathroom.

"Yes." He didn't even look up.

"Then we'll do that." I closed the door behind me and locked it. After changing I took a quick look in the mirror. Khaki cargo pants. Check. Brown shawl. Check. Awesome yellow skirt. Check. Why is it awesome? It's because it's not really a skirt, more like a half skirt, one that is only in the back, but goes all the way down to my knees. Gloves. Check. I unlocked the door and exited the bathroom.

"Took you long enough." Sadi yawned.

"Did I really take that long?" I asked, returning my clothes and getting my weapons.

"Nadeshiko went out to use the public bathroom."

"Oops."

"Well, that just means I get to go next!" Sadi grinned before going into the room I had just exited. I smiled, looks like Sadi's happy again. I reached into my suitcase and pulled out some cookies, gum, and sugar. I put a few sticks of gum into a zipper pocket on my gloves. I did the same with my sugar cubes. Then I put the cookies into the pockets on my pants. Good, all of my weapons are in place.

I grabbed my brush and ran it through my feathery brown hair. Then I bent down to strap on my boots. Yup, all suited up and ready to go. I looked up when the door clicked open. Nadeshiko walked through it, and I busied myself with my already made bed; completely avoiding eye contact with Nadeshiko.

"Where's Sadi?" he asked, putting his stuff away.

"Bathroom." Well that's a first, Nadeshiko said more than I did. I glanced at his outfit, going against my instincts to not. He had pink earbuds draped around his neck, a black shirt and black pants with two pink straps wrapping around both of his thighs. He was buttoning a black jacket lined with grey, and then lining the grey was pink. The collar was popped and rose to his chin, and the bottom of the jacket went halfway down his thigh; partially covering the top strap, the front of the jacket flared out from a button at his waist. His pants tucked into black ankle high boots that seemed to be tipped lined with metal to make it sharp.

"What?" Nadeshiko's voice broke the silence and startled me; which made me jump.

"What what?" I parroted.

"Something you need?" I then realized he was talking about how I was surveying his outfit.

"Ah, no. Sorry, didn't mean to stare at you like that."

"Hn." Nadeshiko nodded before going back to what he was doing.

I groaned before falling onto my newly made bed, this was starting off great.

"I'm ready! Let's go get breakfast!" sang Sadi as she exited the bathroom with a cloud of sparkles and consequently getting glitter on the two closest beds to the bathroom. Sienna's and Nadeshiko's. Nadeshiko then proceeded to give Sadi the death glare as he tried to brush off the glitter. "I'm sorry, I won't do it again." Sadi whimpered while edging to the door.

Nadeshiko didn't seem to hear her as he ran towards her, looking about ready to throttle her.

"I'm sorry!" Sadi wailed as she ran out the door and down the hall with Nadeshiko at her heels.

"Guys! Wait up!" I called, before racing after the two of them.


	9. Chapter 9

"You guys better not mess this up. You already messed up this morning! What do you think everyone must be thinking? You've ruined all possibilities of us even having friends and fitting in! I can't believe I am going to have to stay with the likes of you for the rest of my time at Beacon. How did you even get into Beacon? It's a highly prestigious school. Not your average school!" Sienna ranted, as we walked away from the school into the Emerald Forest, making loud exaggerated huffs at every other sentence. "I mean, seriously, it's not like any of you have any experien-" Sienna was cut off by a punch by Nadeshiko. "How dare you!" Sienna screeched, "a slap is tolerable, but a punch is an outrage! Do you realize who I am? I am above you peasants and because of that you need to respect me! I have a higher status than all of yours com-"

"Shut your mouth." Nadeshiko seethed, his grey looking eyes practically glowing with fury. "You're not the princess of the entire universe. In fact, you're not even a princess. So shut your mouth about how you're better than everyone, because you are not. I don't even care if you're a girl, the next time you spout nonsense about how you're greater than everyone, I will punch your face." Nadeshiko turned on his heel and walked away from us, punching a tree in the process; he didn't even wince.

The three of us stared wide-eyed at him. Sadi and I because that is the most we've ever heard Nadeshiko say at a time. Sienna probably because she's never heard anyone backtalk her.

"Well I'm sorry." Sienna answered; sarcasm dripping off her words, "I can't read minds, so maybe, you could communicate!"

"Uh, Sienna-" Sadi piped up.

"What?" Sienna snarled back.

"Eep. Uh, we have tried to communicate." Sadi whimpered.

"When?" she demanded.

"Every time you've opened your mouth." I shrugged.

"Excuse me? I will have you know that-" once again, Sienna was cut off, this time by a growl. A growl from a grimm.

"Ah!" Sadi screamed, before running to hide behind me. Which was probably not the best choice, considering I was shorter than her.

"Negative thoughts attract the grimm!" I shouted.

"I wouldn't have guessed." Sienna shot back sarcastically, "get to your positions!"

Sadi immediately shot to a tree and climbed up it; perching herself onto a branch and clinging to the trunk for dear life. I found a tree a few feet from her own and took out a cookie from my pocket and swinging it back, I threw it at a branch. The cookie then expanded into a chakram and got lodged into the tree. I ran at it and grabbed the inside of the spiky disk, redirecting myself to spin upwards and land on top of the tree branch; tugging the disk out in the process.

"What are you doing! You're supposed to be where Tate is, and Tate, get down here!" Sienna yelled furiously.

"Just trust us!" I yelled back.

Sienna gave me a disapproving look but turned her attention to a more pressing situation. "Nadeshiko let's move!" she reached into her skirt that was just a mass of ruffles and pulled out a long chain.

"Why did you put yourself in a close-range position?" Nadeshiko demanded, letting a lethal looking disk fly through the air from his boot and embedding it in a beowulf before exploding.

"Because I assumed that Sadi was a long-range fighter!" Sienna retorted, whipping the chain around to hit a beowolf.

"But I'm a close-range fighter!" Sadi bawled from her tree.

"Then why didn't you stay down here?" Sienna demanded.

"Because I'm scared of grimm!"

The rest of team SNST stopped to stare at her. "Then why are you at Beacon?" All three of us yelled simultaneously.

"Don't yell at me!"

Both Nadeshiko and Sienna were shoved away by grimm, no doubt it was because of Sadi's new information.

"Darn it Sadi! Now we can't see them!" I scanned the mass of black to find orange-brown or pink. Nothing. I let loose three chakram, which caused three different explosions to occur. I put my hands together and closed my eyes, scanning for my chakrams that were intentionally fused with a high concentration sugar on the inside. I found them amongst the mass of lower concentration of sugar, and putting my hands out, summoned them back. That's the cool thing about my semblance, I can summon objects with a higher ratio of sugar to other materials.

"Awh, it's my fault that we've lost Sienna and Nadeshiko!" Sadi cried.

"Sadi you have to think positive! The grimm are attracted to your negative thoughts!" I yelled, throwing my chakrams again.

"I can't help it." She sniffled.

"I'm sure you can, but until then you'll have to get down there and help them." No way was I going to do close combat.

"But Tate-"

"Just believe in yourself, I've got you covered!"

Sadi gave a firm nod and jumped down from the branch; throwing a bunch of small black objects that exploded in the mass of grimm, sending quite a few petals into the air. I covered her by letting loose my own chakrams. Sadi's black gloves then took on a silver glint, she punched the closest beowulf, and immediately recoiled. "Owie!"

Seriously. That was sad, and this isn't looking to good. I unzipped a pocket in my glove and took out a sugar cube. Was I already going to have to use my trump card? The answer to that would be no. Sienna decided to make a reappearance, her chain sending explosives every time she whipped it around. On the other side, Nadeshiko was kicking down beowulfs and sending explosives flying from his boots. I then threw two chakrams to take care of a few beowulfs who looked like they were going to attack Sadi.

With a final howl, the beowulfs left, leaving our bedraggled team. I jumped down from my branch, walking to where we were gathering.

"Sadi what was that? You're even more useless than I had imagined!" Sienna yelled stomping over to her.

"I'm sorry." Sadi whimpered; tears streaming down her face.

"Do you even know what Beacon is about?" I asked.

She shook her head no, and Sienna gave an exasperated huff.

"It's a school for training hunters and huntresses, people who hunt down grimm." I explained.

"I don't want to be here then!" Sadi cried.

"You're here now and nothing can change that." Sienna crossed her arms.

"Do you think we could help her train?" I suggested, "we can do that, right?"

"That's stuff she should have learned earlier!" Sienna snapped.

"But she didn't, so we have to train her." I retorted.

"I can't believe I got stuck on a team with her. She's useless, people with my status should have bet-" cue punch in the face by Nadeshiko. "You oaf! That was uncalled for! That was not me being stuck up!" Sienna yelled, punching Nadeshiko.

"Shut your mouth and listen to Tate." He seethed, a dark aura practically being emitted from him.

"We'll help Sadi train, and perhaps get a stronger weapon, because apparently spiked gloved aren't enough to take down a grimm." I smiled.

"You think?" snorted Sienna.

"Yes, I do think." I responded happily.

Sienna snorted again and rolled her eyes. "Let's just get back to the school before we get attacked again."


	10. Chapter 10

"Again with the schooling!" I groaned sliding into a bench.

"Stop complaining! You need to learn this so you can be better in combat!" Sienna snapped back, looking up momentarily from the textbook.

"Why are you reading the textbook? Isn't that for class?" I asked, pointing at the large book.

"It's for studying, ever heard of it?" Sienna answered snarkily.

"Actually, I have." I stated, while looking around for Sadi.

"It was a rhetorical question." Sienna darkly muttered before turning back to the textbook.

"Then why did you ask it?"

Sienna groaned and turned away from me. I jumped up when a book slammed onto the table to the right of me. Looking up, I saw Nadeshiko and immediately scooted down the bench away from him.

"What is wrong with you? It's just Nadeshiko." Sienna asked, giving me a scrutinizing glare.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong with me." I responded, looking away from Nadeshiko.

"Seriously, what's wrong with you?" Sienna slammed both her hands on the table and stood up.

"I'm going to find Sadi." I answered, avoiding the question and immediately leaving the room.

"Something's wrong with her." Was the last thing I heard before the door slammed shut behind me. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and crashed straight into a person. The person wasn't affected very much, but I was; I fell backwards onto my rear end.

"Sorry." I groaned, getting back up.

"It's fine, I wasn't looking where I was going either, but that's okay right? Say, do you like pancakes? I really like pancakes, and sloths, because Ren and I have a super secret code, and well sloths make sounds right? Anyways-" the girl kept talking, while I took in who I just crashed into. There was a girl with orange hair and blue eyes, the most important thing though, was that she was wearing pink. The guy next to her was wearing green, but had a streak of pink in his hair.

"Sorry, I've got to go!" I blurted out before running in the other direction. What is it with all of these people and pink? I ran down the hallway and crashed into another person, this time, a cloud of glitter accompanied my epic fail onto my rear end.

"Tate? Are you alright?" asked a worried voice.

"Oh, it's you. That's a relief, I just crashed into two other people wearing pink!" I wailed.

"And that's bad because…" Sadi gestured for me to continue, considering how the cloud of glitter had fallen to the floor.

"Nothing, it's just that I crashed into two people who I don't know, but they were pretty cool with it, so it's fine!" I smiled.

"Okay then." Sadi slowly nodded.

"Where were you?"

"Oh, well I was talking to Professor Port." She twirled a long strand of brown hair around her fingers.

"Why? Was it something bad?" I immediately asked.

"I was telling him about what happened yesterday, and asked for some advice. It turned into a long-winded story about himself, but he did suggest that I talk to Professor Oobleck about weapons." She answered quietly.

"Wouldn't you talk to Professor Goodwitch? She is the combat specialist."

"Apparently because of Oobleck's vast knowledge, I'd have a better chance of finding a weapon better suited for me."

"How cool!" I grinned, "did they get mad?"

"Just extremely disappointed, and that's probably an all time low for Oobleck." Sadi giggled.

"That's probably true." I agreed, nodding along.

"What are you two doing out here? Why aren't you inside the room discussing battle tactics with us?" Sienna demanded, coming out of practically nowhere.

"Discussing Sadi's new 'classes'." I answered.

"Classes?" Sienna asked dubiously.

"For my lack of grimm handling techniques." Sadi supplied.

"Then you should be discussing it with the rest of us!" Sienna snapped back.

"I was on my way to look for you." Sadi muttered, looking down at the folds of her skirt, "but Tate distracted me."

I gave her a look that said 'are you serious', way to throw me under the bus.

"Tate, you should know by now that when there's an important development you have to tell everyone." Sienna scolded.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I waved my hand in acknowledgement.

"If you know then why didn't you come to talk with us?" Sienna demanded.

"None of your business." I retorted, no way was I going to tell her that I am afraid of pink.

"We're your teammates! You've gotta trust us!" Sienna cried out.

"Then why don't you trust us?" Nadeshiko turned the question to Sienna, I didn't even notice he was there, so when he spoke up, a small squeak burst out of my mouth.

"It's only been a couple of days, you can't expect me to tell you my entire life story right now." Sienna responded with her head held high, "besides, you're one to talk. You've barely said a thing."

"Live with it." Nadeshiko responded snarkily before stalking down the hall.

"And you," Sienna turned to me, "what is up between you and Nadeshiko?" she placed her hands on her hips and shifted her weight onto her right foot.

"Nothing." I answered.

"Puh-lease." Sienna scoffed, "I've been to a fair share of meetings between many people of high status." Her voice then dropped to take on an icy tone as she leaned down to get in my face from her hips, "I can tell when there's something going on between people."

"Ah!" Sadi gasped excitedly, "do you have a crush on Nadeshiko?"

I choked on my tongue, "no! That's ridiculous!"

"You can't always go on denying it." Sadi teased.

"A crush?" Sienna derided, "that's a petty thing to get yourself worked up about."

"It's not a crush!" I shrieked.

"Keep denying it, it'll get worse." Sienna answered, patting my head. I scowled, I didn't think I was that short, maybe it's because she wears high heels. Seriously though, who wears high heels? Especially when you're fighting grimm?

"Was that supposed to be nice?" I asked.

"Perceive it as you may, I'm going to work on battle tactics, and I don't need your help. I can do it on my own."

"I wasn't going to offer anyway!" I smiled cheerfully while waving at her retreating back.

"Good!" Sienna shot back.

"That was mean." Sadi pouted.

"Oh, me?" I asked in an alarmed fashion.

Sadi nodded, which caused her brown twin tails to bob up and down furiously.

"Oops. Well, it doesn't look like Sienna minded, so it's okay. Right?"

Sadi shrugged, "I guess."


	11. Chapter 11

"Tate! Go after his legs!" Sienna yelled furiously towards me as she dealt with Sadi.

"I know what I need to do!" I yelled back, throwing a chakram at Nadeshiko's feet; which he responded by jumping over the chakram and towards me. I let out a cry of alarm and barely got out another chakram before Nadeshiko crashed into me. Metal tipped boots first. I felt the wind get knocked out of me and I skidded backwards about ten feet.

"How in the world did you get all the way back there?" Sienna demanded as she risked a glance at my direction.

"I blame him!" I yelled back as I threw another chakram at the pink male and popped a piece of gum in my mouth.

"You're going to choke on that!" Sienna chastised before knocking Sadi backwards with her chain.

"No I won't!" I sang back before running at Nadeshiko. I noticed his eye widen in surprise before he jumped at least twice his height into the air. I swear, he's probably part kangaroo with how high he can jump. I threw a chakram up at him as I swiped my hand down to pick up one I had already thrown. He blocked it with his feet, but came crashing down to earth with it, he immediately flipped away from the chakram and ran at me. I waited for him to get a couple feet away from me and then dodged to the left side, which I had recently learned was his weak side. That is why you don't cover one eye with your bangs, Nadeshiko. His eyes followed my movements and he redirected his momentum to send his right leg around to kick me. I've also learned that he has very quick reaction time. That's probably a plus to being a close range fighter. His foot didn't get anywhere close to me, but I lethal looking disk popped out of his boot and headed straight towards me. I let out a screech of alarm and tried to duck sideways, I managed to avoid a lethal hit, but the disk tore my skirt.

"Holy shiitake mushrooms Nadeshiko that could've killed me!" I yelled furiously.

"Hn."

"I'm your teammate!" I screeched as my arms flailed around wildly, "you don't kill your own teammate!"

"You're chakrams couldn't have killed me?" he asked.

"Well…" I was at a loss, he had a point.

"I think we've had enough fighting for one day." Sadi panted as she limped towards Nadeshiko's and my stand off.

"What happened?" I asked, noticing her bruised and battered appearance.

"Sienna." Was her one word answer.

"This isn't enough training." Sienna answered, strutting over to our little congregation, "we haven't even been sparring for ten minutes, and you," once again, Sienna turned her line of fire onto me, "you're a long range fighter, you have a better chance of winning against a close range fighter."

"If you're so good, you go against Nadeshiko next time." I responded.

"I will!" Sienna huffed, "but that's not the point! There was no clear winner! So you can't end the spar!"

"Why don't we practice on dummies?" Sadi suggested in her meek voice.

"Why would we do that? We have each other to spar with!" Sienna asked incredulously.

"Because training is best done in spurts. Train for too long at a time and your form gets sloppy." I answered.

"You all are weak." Sienna sneered, "Nadeshiko, will you spar with me?"

"No." He answered monotonously.

Sienna paused, she probably didn't expect Nadeshiko to decline her invitation. "Fine then. I'll find someone else who's strong enough since all of you are sissies." Sienna huffed and stalked off.

"Do as you wish, nobody's controlling you." I shrugged.

Sienna glared at me, and it looked like she was going to flip me off, but for some reason she didn't.

"I'm going to go back to our room." I announced, heading out of the training room and walking to the dorms.

"Hn."

"Awh shiitake mushrooms!" Sadi screeched after me, "I've got to go see Professor Oobleck!" I heard the brisk tapping of her sparkly red high tops running after me and then she flew by me with a cloud of glitter. So much for never getting glitter everywhere again.

"Stupid." Nadeshiko muttered behind me as he coughed on the cloud of red glitter.

I meandered to our room and walked over to my now organized wardrobe. I took out another transparent, yellow skirt and unfastened my torn skirt from my waist and fastened a fresh skirt. I held up my skirt and frowned. That' not a clean cut. I pulled the skirt taut to see the extent of the rip. Yup, I'll need to sew that, well, I'd probably sew it anyways, as long as I wasn't lazy. Which would be a miracle. Go me.

 **A/N-sorry, short chapter.**


	12. Chapter 12

"Ms. Suzuki, do you think you could answer the question?" Professor Oobleck jarred me from my thoughts.

"I'm sorry. What was the question?" I straightened up in my seat.

"Why has there always been a deep resentment for faunus?"

I stiffened in my seat. Definitely something that I would like to talk about. "Well, some people are afraid of change." I could hear a classmate smothering a snicker, "others feel superiority. Others are afraid. The main point is, humans are afraid of faunus because they don't feel the equality." I turned around to glare at the laughing human, "and then there are others who are just flat out ignorant." I yelled the last part at the brown haired person.

"Ms. Suzuki, I would appreciate it if you didn't raise your voice. Anyways," Professor Oobleck's voice faded away as I made eye contact with the person, a silent snarl was sent both ways, and we turned away from each other. Great way to make friends.

"Tate. Are you okay?" Sadi's sweet voice made it's way into my head.

"Hm? I'm fine, don't worry." I whispered back.

"If you're sure." Sadi trailed off. Sadi was sitting to my left, with Nadeshiko next to her, and Sienna next to Nadeshiko. Sienna refused to sit next to Sadi, and me.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, what is the best battle technique for a four man squad?" Sienna asked, with her pen poised and ready to take notes.

"There isn't a perfect formula that you can put a four man squad into. Your battle technique will depend on the type of fighters that are in your squad. Right now, you have an excellent squad. Two close range and two long range fighters. An equal spread of talents, you should use that. Now, the next great moment in history."

Sienna deflated, she looked astounded that Professor Oobleck hadn't given her a direct answer. She dropped her pen and slumped backwards into the bench. Seems like someone's used to having things go her own way.

The class continued like that, there was no more talk between my team, and I could feel a glare in the back of my head. What a great way to end class. The bell rang and immediately everyone began packing up. There were some people who decided to take their time, but a majority of the people sped out of the room.

"This is a waste of time." Sienna fumed in our room. She was pacing back and forth in the center of the room-the only place where floor was visible-and grumbling under her breath. Nadeshiko had disappeared into his corner of the room, but every now and then we heard the sound of him moving around, but he was mostly silent as he bobbed his head in time to the music that came from his earphones. Sadi was sitting on her bed with her phone in her hand, and you could clearly tell that she was playing games. Me? Well, I was on my laptop.

"Are you even listening?" Sienna demanded. "How do they expect us to become good fighters if they don't even teach us anything useful!"

"Intuition." I answered without even looking at her.

"It was a rhetorical question!" Sienna shrieked, "okay, this is what we're doing, Sadi, do you have a better weapon?"

"Um, well, kind of. I haven't really trained much with it." Sadi looked up at Sienna.

"Okay, get up, all three of you. We're going to go training."

"What?" I looked up at her dumbfounded.

"You heard me, get your weapons." Sienna tapped a heeled foot.

"I thought you were one to follow curfew." Sadi stated.

"Well, yes, but drastic times call for drastic measures! If we don't learn these things ourselves, there's no way we're going to be able to learn! Besides, I'm doing this for you, so you should be thankful!" she stomped over to Nadeshiko's corner. "Nadeshiko!" she reached over to yank his earbuds out of his ears.

"What have I told you about touching me?" he asked venomously as he gripped her arm to prevent any snatching of the earbuds.

"Let go of me!" Sienna demanded as she pried her arm out of his grip. "Get up, we're leaving now." She pocketed her phone and tucked her weapon into its holster as the three of us picked up our weapons. She turned off the light and quietly opened the door. As expected, the lights were off because it was past curfew. Immediately Sadi tripped over the carpet and a cloud of glitter materialized, resulting in angry grumbles from Nadeshiko. "Shush!" Sienna whispered harshly. We walked down the hallway and out of the dorms. Sienna's heels made clicks, my combat boots made dull thuds, Sadi's high tops made taps, and Nadeshiko was mostly quiet, except for the occasional scratching of his metal tipped boots on the ground.

We walked out of the school grounds and trekked to the Emerald Forest, which was thankfully not to far. Once we entered the forest though, well, it was dark and we could feel the grimms' eyes on us.

"Okay, here is the plan. Nadeshiko and Sadi, since you two are mainly close range fighters, you'll be leading the way. As soon as a grimm appears, take them down as fast as possible. Tate and I will be behind you, and keeping away any grimm that try to attack from the side or the back."

"No goal? Grimm?" Sadi whimpered.

"The goal is to stay in this spot for, fifteen minutes. Does that sound fair?"

"Well, other than the fact that we're up past curfew, should be sleeping, and instead are fighting grimm, that's pretty fair coming from you." I answered.

"Shut it." Sienna snapped. "Since I'm not getting any protests, we'll go with that." She closed her eyes and almost immediately there was the thunder of a horde of grimm.

"What did you do?" Sadi wailed.

"Released all of my negative thoughts." Sienna shrugged.

"What?" Sadi asked.

"I let all of my worries disappear." Sienna answered.

"So, is that your semblance?"

"No! That's a common skill! Get ready!" Sienna's chains clattered against each other. The first grimm emerged from the trees to our left as it roared. I sent a chakram whirling towards the grimm which slashed through the wolf and stuck in a tree. A boarbatusk spun towards us and I unfolded another chakram. I crouched down and held my chakram up as a shield. The metal of my chakrams collided with the spinning bones of the boarbatusk and halted its movement. Sadi turned towards me and threw a spike at it. It lodged itself into the boarbatusks skin and created a small explosion. Strong enough to kill it, but not strong enough to hurt me.

"Tate!" I heard Sienna's call through the mess of roars and noticed her hold back about four grimm with her chain-they were beowulf's. I threw a chakram and maneuvered it with my semblence to cleanly cut through the four of them. Sienna gave me a nod before whipping her chain around and launching a projectile into a horde of grimm. "Sadi, can you use your weapon now?"

"Um, I think, I can, I uh, don't really know." Sadi stuttered as she continued to throw around small bombs.

"Well try it now!" Sienna demanded.

"Get out of the way!" Sadi yelled back before disappearing with a cloud of dust.

"Did she just ditch?" Sienna asked in disbelief.

"Just do what she says!" I yelled back as I launched myself into the tree that still had my chakram. I watched Sienna wrap her chain around a strong branch and flip upright on the branch. Nadeshiko had somehow gotten onto the branch before I could notice what he did. I grabbed my chakram that was stuck in the tree and tugged it out as the glitter seemed to get thicker, it would definitely have been blinding had we been in daylight. Nadeshiko was poised on the branch and extremely tense, he obviously didn't like the idea of leaving Sadi in the midst of all those grimm; I didn't either.

There was the sound of something scratching against another, and then a scream and Sadi launching herself out of the cloud of dust. Unfortunately, she didn't plan the landing very well as she ended up crashing clumsily onto a branch. A few moments later the glitter burst into flames. There were howls from the grimm but they slowly began to die out.

"Hi guys." Sadi smiled weakly.

"You're weapon is fire?" Sienna asked in disbelief, "you're semblance isn't even fire! How can use fire as your semblance?" Sienna demanded.

"Well, glitter." Sadi responded lamely.

Sienna facepalmed, "that's nice to know."

"It's a really clever way to harness your glitter." I piped up in an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere, "definitely took out a large chunk of the grimm."

Sadi smiled weakly, "thanks."

"Are you okay? You seem tired."

"Well, we are fighting grimm in the middle of the night." She shrugged.

"Good point, speaking of, when are we going back?" I turned to look at Sienna.

"Now is fine, if you want to go, that is. I can continue to train."

"Yeah, well, we're not all superheroes like you Sienna, we need our sleep."

"Tch. You all are weak." She scoffed with her nose stuck high up in the air.

"I'm going now." I said as I jumped down from the branch, which was soon followed by Sadi stumbling to the ground, and Nadeshiko landing on his feet.

"Are you coming Sienna?" Sadi looked up at said girl in an incredibly sweet way.

"I'm coming, because you guys wouldn't be able to get back without me." Sienna said before swinging down to the ground with the help of her chain. Before Sienna even finished her sentence Nadeshiko and I walked away with one thought in both of our minds. Nope. Of course, I still hadn't gotten over my fear of pink, so I walked about 10 feet away from Nadeshiko.

"Seriously, what is up between you and Nadeshiko?" Sienna yelled after our retreating backs.

"Nothing." I stuttered and moved farther away from him.

"You still haven't told him? I can't believe you Tate! He's your teammate, you should be able to trust him more than all the other guys in this school." Sienna scolded me.

"He's right there!" I yelled back, motioning to said male.

"Something you need to tell me?" Nadeshiko questioned.

"Nope! Nothing! We're done right? Alright I'll see you back at the room!" I stuttered before flying back to our dorm room. Not literally, of course, because I don't have wings.

By the time they had gotten back to the room, I was already in bed and attempting to fall asleep with my back turned against the doorway.

"Is she asleep?" I heard the hushed voice of Sadi.

"Better not risk it." Sienna said.

"Nadeshiko, did you do anything to Tate?" I heard Sienna facepalm after Sadi's comment.

"No." Was the montone answer.

"I wonder what's up with her?"

"Shush, she's probably not asleep, we can talk about it later." Sienna said, which effectively quieted Sadi.

"Alright." Nobody talked after that.


	13. Chapter 13

"Okay Tate, seriously. What is up between you and Nadeshiko? It's been over a semester!" Sienna demanded.

"I told you, nothing!" I insisted.

"Then why can't you be within a five foot range with him?"

"It's nothing!" I continued to insist. Yes, it's been over a semester, inside my mind I was slapping myself. I guess old habits die hard. I blame Razz.

"Tate! This is ruining our team atmosphere! We can't continue if half of our team can't get along with each other!"

"Okay, fine, fine, I'm just afraid of the color pink because of this barbie who's actually a human and she was just really mean to me and her and her group all wore pink and because of that I am forever scared of the color pink!" I yelled out in one breath.

"Come again?" Sienna asked.

"It's not Nadeshiko it's his color!" I hyperventilated.

"Oh, that actually explains a lot." Sienna said after a moment's hesitation.

"See! You should've figured it out and not made me go through the pain of yelling it out to you!" I yelled.

"Well, I'm sorry if I'm not perfect." Sienna shot back sarcastically.

"Well you act like it all the time!" I yelled back.

"Guys! Let's please not fight!" Sadi pleaded.

"Right." Sienna breathed, "sorry for yelling at you like that."

"I started it." I shrugged.

"Oh my gosh you guys actually talked kindly to each other. The apocalypse is near!" Sadi shrieked.

I stopped what I was doing, then looked up at Sienna, "I still don't like her!" I pointed out.

"The feeling is mutual." Sienna sneered.

"Nope, the apocalypse has been delayed for another hundred years." Sadi sighed.

"Yeah, it's not happening when I'm alive, because I'll stop it." Sienna replied smugly.

Sadi gave her a fake smile while I looked back down at my work. I felt someone sit down next to me, and immediately I scooted down the table about ten feet.

"Tate! My gosh! Get over it!" Sienna snapped as she slammed her hands on the table.

"Did I do something wrong?" Nadeshiko asked.

"No, you stay right where you are." Sienna ordered as she pointed at Nadeshiko, "you." Now she pointed at me, "get your butt over here and talk to him! He's on your team!"

"Just because I told you my reason doesn't mean I'm going to do anything to change." I replied as I continued looking down at my homework, but was simultaneously keeping an eye on the pink blob named Nadeshiko.

"I beg to differ. You are a part of this team, and because you're a part of this team you need to work to make this team work."

"Well you could work on that too!" I retorted.

"Since you haven't noticed, I've been taking strides to make this team better. Un. Like. You." Sienna replied with venom dripping off of her voice.

I let out a scowl and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Sienna demanded.

"Places." I answered vaguely as I began walking away.

"Tate I-don't-know-your-middle-name Suzuki! Get your faunus butt back here!" Sienna yelled.

"Tate. What did I do wrong?" Nadeshiko asked as I walked past him.

"Nothing! I promise! It's not at all your fault! I'm just gonna leave now! Goodbye!" I answered hastily as I ran out the door. Stupid Razzmatazz. Making me like this in my new school.

"Tate!" Sadi called after me.

"What?" I asked. I didn't even pause for her, but I could tell by her rapid footsteps that she was getting closer to me.

"Please! Just go talk to Nadeshiko. You know he's not a bad person! He's all confused you know, and just like Sienna said, it's not good for our team to be like this."

"I know, I know." I sighed. All of my previous energy had disappeared as soon as I left the room. "Old habits die hard, you know?"

"I can sympathize with that." Sadi nodded.

I smiled. Sadi is such a good friend. "Thanks. What do you think I should do?"

"I dunno, talk to him?" Sadi shrugged.

"Because I'm suddenly going to get my confidence in three minutes."

"That's all I got!"

"Tate! Get your butt back here before I drag you! And I will!" Sienna threatened from the doorway.

I let out a groan and slowly trudged over to the room.

"Good." Sienna observed.

"Come on, it's not that bad! I promise he's sweet! But you already know that!" Sadi smiled as she skipped back towards the room. "Right Nadeshiko? You're a real sweetie on the inside."

Nadeshiko responded with a cold look.

"Okay, he just doesn't want to admit it." Sadi shrugged.

"Hey, uh, Nadeshiko." I started without looking at said person, "you see, you really haven't done anything wrong, and it's just me being paranoid because that's just what faunus do, especially if there is a certain person at your old school who just was obsessed with the color pink and there's nothing you can do about it and they've pretty much scarred you for life and because of that you can't talk or even look at anybody wearing pink without hyperventilating and exiting the room as quickly as possible." I ranted. I looked around the room and my three teammates had the 'slowly trying to understand what just happened' look on their face.

"Well, that happened." Sadi slowly said, "granted, that's not much better than you normally are, but that's a start."

"Repeat?" Nadeshiko asked.

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it after I saw pink, "uh. No. Sorry, I promise it's not your fault it's just that you can ask them since they already know what's going on and I can't really help it and I've already explained this twice now in the last I don't know, five minutes and I still can't get over my fear it's not you. Goodbye." With that, I sped out of the room and could barely hear the sound of Sadi face-palming.


	14. Chapter 14

"Um. Nadeshiko." I tried to avoid looking at his pink-clad outfit.

"Hn."

"So, I'm not afraid of you I'm just afraid of the color pink. There's a story behind that but I don't think you want to hear that so yeah. Are we cool?"

"You're about as scatterbrained as Sadi."

"Hey! That's offensive and mean! On two accounts!" I retorted.

"Good to know."

"So are we good?" I asked hesitantly.

"Don't let it get in the way." Nadeshiko responded before walking away.

"Huh?" I asked cluelessly behind him.

"Way to go Tate! You did it!" Sadi cheered as she appeared from behind a bush.

"Well, he is in the uniform." I pointed out.

"Good point, why haven't you talked to him about your pink issue before then?" Sadi asked cluelessly.

I shrugged, "didn't feel like talking to him, and I don't think he wanted to talk to me either."

"That shouldn't have stopped you for a semester." Sadi pointed out.

"Well, it did and nothing can change that." I responded.

"Sadi, what time is it?"

"Um," she took out her scroll from her pocket, "nine forty."

"That would explain why he left in such a hurry, we have a class to get to." I said briskly as I stood up and ran off in the direction that Nadeshiko went.

"Huh? Wait! Tate!" Sadi ran after me, "you can't leave me! You know how bad I am with directions! I'll never remember which class we need to get to! Hey! Tate! Tate!"

"You should be faster than me! I know you can do it!" I taunted back.

"I'm not wearing my glitter shoes!" she wailed behind me.

 **A/N-Yeah, it's another short chapter, but I really needed to get the resolved conflict between Tate and Nadeshiko before I can get into the real climax of the story.**


	15. Chapter 15

"Okay. End of year exam. Are you guys ready? Because if you're not, we're all going to fail and it's going to be your fault." Sienna stated firmly.

"Wow Sienna, I thought you would be all supportive and encouraging but no. You just had to send all of our spirits down." I said sarcastically.

"Shut it Tate, I'm being realistic here." Sienna gave me, surprise surprise, a cold glare.

The four of us were gathered into a circle, Sienna, Sadi, me, and Nadeshiko. I slowly had gotten over my fear of pink, thanks to Sadi and Nadeshiko's nonchalant-though-cold atmosphere.

"We've been training for this all year long, and we've formed the best ways to work together as a group. Tate, finally has gotten over her troubles and I feel I've gotten better at being a good leader for you guys."

"Way to be modest." I muttered.

"Watch it. As I was saying, if we don't pass this test, we're going to have to go through first year, again, and I don't want to be the leader of the only team who gets held back a year. You guys got me? So do this right the first time."

"Got it." Sadi cheerfully answered, "you think we'll be facing grimm?"

The three of us gave her deadpanned looks. "How has this not sunk in? This is a school dedicated to training hunters and huntresses to hunt grimm. Of course there will be grimm! We're not training to fight other kingdoms and faunus!" Sienna explained.

"Right. How could I have forgotten?" Sadi laughed nervously.

"Still haven't heard a confirmation from you two." Sienna said as she looked to me and Nadeshiko.

"Yeah." I replied.

"Hn." Nadeshiko answered, which we've figured it is basically his yes, or I'm listening.

"Okay. Go Team SNST!" Sadi cheered.

"Team SNST!" I replied just as enthusiastically.

"You two are making fools of our team." Sienna deadpanned.

"Oops." Sadi smiled sheepishly.

"Team SNST, please head to the proctor area." A loudspeaker announced.

"It's game time, let's go." Sienna straightened up and took the lead as our team walked over to the launchpads that we were launched off the first time we were at Beacon.

"Kind of nostalgic, ain't it?" Sadi smiled.

"That wasn't even a year ago! It can't be nostalgic yet!" Sienna yelled back.

"Way to show teamwork." I laughed as I positioned myself on the pad. Sadi giggled in response. Sienna sent a nod towards all of us and we were all launched into the air.

"Woo hoo!" Sadi cheered as we fell to the ground.

"We're not close enough!" Sienna yelled before she unfurled her chain.

"We didn't think this through!" I yelled in panic as I pulled out a chakram to block the chain from severely hurting me.

"We're too close to the trees!" Sadi wailed as she kicked the chain to keep it from hurting her.

"Abort the chain and meet up on the ground!" Nadeshiko firmly stated before sending himself flying even faster towards the ground.

"Sounds good!" I responded as I pulled my chakram out of the chain and flipped backwards to fall feet first through the leaves.

"Ahhhh!" was Sadi's only comment as she fell through the sky.

"You could've said something!" Sienna retorted as she furled her chain and threw it at a bare branch to swing onto.

"Same could be said to you! Throwing your chain out like that!" I yelled back furiously. Sienna might've sent me a dirty look, but I couldn't tell as I was descending into the leaves of the trees. I stuck a chakram into a branch, used the momentum to flip back into the air, and rolled onto the ground. "Sadi?"

"Ahhhh!"

I sighed, ran back up a tree, and launched myself into the air to crash into Sadi as she fell from the sky.

"Ow. Tate! Why'd you crash into me?" she whined.

"Because it's better than crashing into the earth. You need to work on your landing strategies. Next year though, it's a little late for this year." I answered as I rubbed my shoulder. "Come on, we better catch up to the others, wouldn't want to anger Sienna." I jumped off the branch and held out my arm for the chakram as Sadi tumbled down the tree.

"Sienna? Nadeshiko?" Sadi called out.

"We're right here." Sienna replied snarkily as she swung down from a branch and Nadeshiko emerged from some bushes.

"Well done team SNST, you managed to meet up after the launch. Though, there was some difficulty." Professor Ozpin mused from our scrolls.

"You're hilarious." Sienna commented dryly.

"I'm sure you're wondering about your mission. It's simple, kill all of the grimm in the way as you head to the fallen bridge. I'm certain you'll be able to make it."

"Wow, some test. I expected a much more complex task. I'm not complaining though. Let's go!" I took off through the woods to find a clearing as the rest of my team followed. I quickly found a large enough clearing for the task.

"Alright let's do this. This is something we can do." Sienna declared. She stood to the side of the clearing along with Sadi. Nadeshiko stood at the center with one of my chakrams. I ran at him and jumped onto the chakram, he then sent the chakram upwards which launched me into the air. I grabbed onto my shawl to create wings as Sienna whipped her chain up with her wind to send me higher into the air. I glanced around and saw the unmistakable gray column rising from the earth. With a better sense of direction, I let myself fall back to earth with a somewhat graceful roll to get me to the ground safely.

"That way." I retrieved my chakram from Nadeshiko and pointed in the direction in which I saw the grey column.

"That way we shall go then." Sienna agreed as she walked off in the direction that I had pointed towards.

"I'm sure that was fun, flying up there like that." Sadi grinned as she fell in step with me.

"It's not like it's anything new though." I shrugged.

There was a roar and Sadi immediately shrieked and seemed to recoil into me.

"It's only an Ursa, this place is filled with grimm like that." Sienna answered.

"Good thing it's not a Deathstalker or anything like that. That, would lead to trouble." I said, trying to see the silver lining for Sadi's sake.

"I got it." Nadeshiko said before running towards the roar. A moment later there was an explosion and another roar, and Nadeshiko ran back towards us. "That's not an Ursa."

"What? Then what is it?" Sadi questioned in a panic.

"It's something that we're going to have to deal with since it's coming this way." Sienna snapped before unfurling her chain, "and we're going to deal with it the right way."

Sadi, Nadeshiko and I quickly scrambled up the nearest tree as Sienna held her ground with her chain ready for action.

"Why is a Creep here?" was my first reaction as the grimm made it's appearance.

"I don't know but we're going to have to fight it." Sienna replied as she swung her chain around to hit the grimm. Nadeshiko immediately launched himself into the fight as soon as the chain was no longer in motion but the grimm was still distracted. He had his earbuds in and his second, longer, set of earbuds unfurled. He wrapped it around the Creeps neck and forced a disk into his neck.

"Hold it Nadeshiko!" I called out as I launched myself towards the neck. Once I landed, I grabbed three of my explosives and buried it into the Creeps neck, which I somehow managed to do. "Move!" I jumped off the Grimm and back into the trees as Nadeshiko gracefully tumbled off. Not a moment later that the explosives went off and the Creep howled in agony.

"It's not enough! Sadi! Catch!" Sienna threw one side of her chain over to said person and ran around the creep, she then grabbed onto a tree to hold the chain taut.

Nadeshiko and I took that as our cue to jump at the grimm and release a barrage of hits. I ran around it and let loose multiple chakrams, while Nadeshiko took care of the top part of the grimm and released multiple metal blades.

"Tate! Activate your semblance!" Sienna shouted.

"You got it!" I placed a sugar cube and a stick of gum in my mouth before crunching down onto the sugar cube. Only a few moments after I bit the sugar cube that the world began to change. The world slowed down a fraction and my sight added a new power and I was able to see the sugar content of everything. My chakrams stood out in stark contrast to everything else. I summoned my chakrams with ease and spun around in a circle. I stowed two chakrams back into my pocket and while keeping a firm grip on the other two, spun the chakrams around in a circle around me. I then ran up the Creep while still spinning and with a final push, broke through the flesh of the grimms neck and decapitated it.

I spat out the gum and my sugary spit and rested on the ground for a moment.

"Awesome!" Sadi cheered as she scrambled down the branch.

"You alright?" Sienna asked.

I nodded.

"Good, I was beginning to think you were incapable of handling your semblance." And snarky Sienna was back.

"Alright, let's keep going." I used a tissue and picked up the wad of gum and stowed it into a pocket to be thrown away.

"Sadi, I hoped you didn't get disoriented." Sienna sighed.

"Um." Sadi started nervously, "you know me, I'm really bad at directions."

I face-palmed, Nadeshiko was aloof, and Sienna looked ready to throttle Sadi.

"That way." Nadeshiko somehow didn't get disoriented and pointed in the direction we needed to go.


	16. Chapter 16

"Alright. We're at the bridge. Now what?" the four of us made our way through the bushes into the clearing before the bridge. Thankfully we didn't run into anymore Creeps. Of course we saw the standard Ursa and Beowulf's, but nothing that we couldn't handle.

"I swear, if Ozpin sent us on a wild goose chase…" Sienna muttered darkly.

"Okay, we don't want to upset our proctor, and headmaster." Sadi whimpered in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

"I heard that last comment Sienna. I'm sure you'll be pleased to learn that I haven't sent you on a wild goose chase." Ozpin mused.

"Just get on with it, I want to pass this test as quickly as-" Sienna was cut off by Nadeshiko, who decided now would be a good time to clamp her mouth shut with his hand.

"Go teamwork." I sighed half-heartedly at our scattered team.

"Well, now that you've gotten yourselves settled, it's time that you learn what you need to do in order to finish. There's a relic on the other side of the fallen bridge. As hunters and huntresses, you may be sent on missions to retrieve items that aren't going to be easy to get and require teamwork. Good luck."

"What?" I questioned loudly, "how on earth are we even supposed to get to the other side? That doesn't even look stable!"

"Parkour." Sienna answered simply.

"Well, how are we going to do this?" I scanned the area to look for any places where it was a shorter death gap. "What happens if we die?"

"Fail." Was Nadeshiko's curt answer.

"Fun."

"Well, if we all climbed up that one tree, Sienna could wrap her chain around the stone pillar in the center and we could thread one of Tate's chakrams onto the chain, and just zipline down." Sadi suggested.

"A few flaws, one. Sienna's chain is not long enough. Two. Who is going to hold the chain for the last person? Or even the first person, can three people hold onto one person's ever changing weight? Three. If Sienna's chain was long enough, how would she wrap it around the pillar securely?" I pointed out.

"Oh. I guess I see what you mean." Sadi sighed dejectedly.

"I got it." Nadeshiko said after a silence. The three of us looked at Nadeshiko, if he was saying a full sentence, he's got a good idea. "Since this outcropping of the fallen bridge is the shortest death gap, we'll go through here. We'll use brute force. Just like earlier when we launched Tate into the air, we'll launch Tate across the gap. We can do the same for Sadi. Tate, you'll just have to be prepared to catch her. Sienna will then throw her chain over. Tate will grab the chain and wrap it once around the pillar. Sienna, since you have the most control over body movement using your chain, you'll basically swing yourself across the gap, Tate and Sadi will hold the other side of the chain and move around the pillar in accordance to how you swing in order to ensure a full circle of support."

"What about you?" I asked.

"Professor Ozpin only said we needed to retrieve a relic, he didn't say the whole team had to be present."

"Okay, how am I supposed to catch Sadi?"

"Sadi, you've been working on your parkour, right?"

"Um, well, not really."

We all facepalmed, seriously, this girl's sweet and cool and all of that, but she sucks at being a huntress.

"You'll probably have to reach out and grab her."

"What? That's really dangerous, I don't think that's going to work!"

"Sadi, you just need to make sure you get across the gap, Tate, I trust that you'll catch her."

"Uh, okay. I guess that sounds like a plan."

"Sadi, you better not fall into that gap, because I don't know if you'll make it out alive if you fall into that gap." Sienna lectured sternly.

"G-great. That sounds real good." Sadi stuttered.

"Alright, let's get this over with. Tate, get your faunus butt over here."

I handed Nadeshiko one of my chakrams and grabbed my shawl. "Here I go!" I ran towards Nadeshiko and jumped onto the chakram in his hands. He then promptly sent me flying into the air, but with an angle to ensure I'd get across the gap. I held out my shawl to make makeshift wings and Sienna used the wind to successfully get me over the gap.

"Whoo! Nice job!" I cheered. "Professor Ozpin, what did you say that relic was?"

"It's at the top of that pillar right there, and is a pretty heavy amulet of sorts."

"I didn't even know that sort of thing existed." I turned my head to look upwards at the top of the pillar. "You think if we knock this down we'll get the amulet?" I called over to the rest of my team.

"I don't think so, it was designed to take more than one person to get it!" Sienna yelled back. "You'd have to scale it, or fly up there to get it! We're sending Sadi over!"

I watched as the scene unfolded, Sadi stepped back a few steps and ran towards Nadeshiko and the makeshift chakram launch. It looked good until right before Sadi jumped. Her speed caused her to move forward as she jumped, and thus crashed her feet into Nadeshiko squarely in the chest. The two of them fell over and tumbled dangerously close to the edge. I quickly sent out four chakrams and controlled the sugar in them to place them perpendicular to the edge in an attempt to keep them from falling off. "Sienna! Grab them!"

With practiced care, Sienna used her chain to somehow wrap around the two of them and bring them back away from the edge. Satisfied that my teammates were away from imminent danger, I controlled the chakrams to return back to me.

"Sadi!" Sienna fumed, "do you realize that you and Nadeshiko were one foot away from certain death?" Even from across the gap, I could hear every word Sienna said with no problem. "What even happened? You could've gotten half of your team killed! What is wrong with you? Why did you even sign up for Beacon Academy? It's been a whole year, and I figured that maybe you'd find your reason, or at least get remotely good at this, but no! How did you even pass the entrance exam? How were you able to fill all of the prerequisites to enter this school? How are you even still here?" Sienna yelled.

"I'm sorry." Sadi whimpered, "I really tried. I just don't seem to be getting better, and I just put Nadeshiko's life at risk, and you're right. I shouldn't be here, I can't stay here. I won't apply for next term." Sadi ended her apology by bursting into tears.

"Sienna, we need to get out of here now. All of this angst is going to summon the Grimm." Nadeshiko sternly said, as he took on the role of being a leader.

"Wait! We just need the relic, we're so close to it!" I shouted. "Sienna, throw me your chain! We'll get that relic and get out of here!"

"It's too dangerous!" Sienna retorted, "we can't leave this blubbering mess of Sadi!"

"We're not! You're the one who's so adamant about passing! Just get over here! The more time we spend arguing is time lost to the Grimm!"

Sienna gave a brisk nod before throwing an end of her chain over to me. I quickly ran around the pillar before turning to face Sienna. "Go!"

She stepped a couple steps back before running at the edge, I followed the chain around the pillar as Sienna swung around and then landed on the island we had situated ourselves at.

"So grateful that that worked." I sighed in appreciation.

"If only we had Schnee's glyphs, this would be a piece of cake."

"But we don't, so we need to think of another way."

"Give me a chakram." I began to hand her one, but immediately tensed up and froze as a howl was heard in the distance. "Hurry!" I hastily handed her one as it unfolded. "Alright, jump up. I'll give you as much support as I can."

"Sien-"

"Just do it!"

With the pressure quickly rising, I stepped back a couple feet and launched myself towards Sienna, I jumped onto the chakram and jumped the same time she pushed upwards as well. It was a lot shakier than Nadeshiko's launches and I struggled to keep myself going. A gust of wind helped me rise up and I reached out a hand for the relic on top of the pillar. I grabbed it and gave a grunt of surprise as it was heavier than expected. That extra weight led to a clumsy fall on my part to the island of degrading rock. "Got it."

"Alright, now let's get back over there."

"We never thought this through, did we?"

"We're ziplining. Nadeshiko, catch!" Sienna threw over a side of her chain once again, before threading the chakram that was in her grasp earlier onto the chain. "Go." I pocketed the relic and grabbed the chakram before sending myself flying across the gap. The chain made an unpleasant screeching sound as I slid across it and it also wavered quite a bit, which didn't help me at all. As I neared the wall, I put my feet out in front of me and ran up the wall as I let go of my chakram, hoping that any momentum that I had wouldn't be abruptly stopped.

I slipped at the top and frantically reached out a hand, and was more than relieved when both Nadeshiko's and Sadi's hands grabbed it. "Thanks." I breathed as I was pulled up.

"Grab the chain, we don't have a solid structure to anchor it to, so the three of us will have to hold Sienna's weight." Nadeshiko ordered. I nodded and held onto the chain after Sadi. "Alright, go!"

The three of us struggled to hold our ground as Sienna swung around and onto the ground next to us. "Good job. None of us died. What do you have next for us Ozpin?" Sienna demanded.

"Calm down Sienna, an airship is already on its way."

"Let's hang out in the trees so we don't have to deal with the grimm." Sadi suggested before sprinting towards them, which was quickly followed by the three of us.


End file.
